


AGKICULTUBAL EDUCATION 

AS A FACTOR IN DEVELOPING 

USEFUL' MEN. 



AN ADDRESS 



WJBD H. EANKIN, 

Sajiertutaadant Agrtooltural Colke* Extension, Univaraity of HUnolA, tfabana, 
BEPOBE THB 

THIRTY-THIRD ANNUAL MEETING OF THE KANSAS STATE 
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 

TOPEKA, KAN,, JANUARY 14, 10O4. 



AL90, 

OIBOULAR OF INFORMATION, COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, 

URBANA, 1904. 




IN EXCHANGE. 



<*■ 



o 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AS A FACTOR 
IN DEVELOPING USEFUL MEN. 



AN ADDRESS BY FRED H. RANKIN, 

Superintendent of Agricultural College Extension, 
University of Illinois, at Urbana. 

Deliverd before the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, at Topeka, January 14, 1934. 

• There are two things in this world which it easy to give and not so easy to 
to take. They are medicine and advice. From the healthy and robust appear- 
ance of the people in this audience, I do not believe you have much use for the 
former, and, besides, it is out of my line. As to advice, I believe that the aver- 
age boy is in very much the same condition as the man who had goose for dinner 
every day for a week or two during his holiday visit, and about the last place he 
went to he was asked to say grace, and this is what he said : 

"Of gander young, of gander old, 
Of gander hot, of gander cold, 
Of gander tender, of gander tough, 
Good Lord, we thank Thee ; 
Lord, we've had enough." 

I have been asked to talk to you upon agricultural education as a factor in 
developing useful men. The speaker is one who sympathizes with young people, 
and is anxious to help them in an educational' way, and realizes that most boys 
have manly aims and desires, and a strong purpose in mind to master some par- 
ticular business, and, such being the case, will have an appetite for more school- 
ing. The useful man in this world is the man who does his work well. Success 
in any vocation means doing your work well. Doing it well is all that is neces- 
sary to make the humblest occupation honorable. In the world's work, it mat- 
ters little whether you raise corn or calves, peg shoes or write books, doing it 
well should be the true ambition of every worker. 

There is an old saying, "Work is the engine which draws the car of success." 
While that ie a very good motto, yet it could be improved upon. Hard work 
alone will not always bring success. Let me try to draw a word picture for you. 
Suppose we have standing upon the railroad-track a huge car labeled " success." 
In front of it stands a powerful locomotive which we will call "work." Is the pic- 
ture complete ? Is the train ready to move ? No ; you want a skilled engineer in 
the cab of that engine, with his hand upon the lever and his eye looking ahead; 
over him let us print in big letters the word "thought." Now we have a corrected 
motto which reads: "Thought is the skilled engineer who directs the engine, 
work, which draws the car of success." In short, it is well-directed labor that 
pays. Young men, we are living in an age when all kinds of successful busi- 
ness is thought out before it is worked out, which means the active exercise of 
both head and hand of those engaged in it. You know the world is full of fairly 
good workers. Excellent workers are scarce. It is not enough for a young man 
to try to do his best, but he must do the work given to him to do. Do it thor- 
oughly and completely ; best or no best, the work must be done and done satis- 
factorily. It is not a question of trying to do the best, but of actually doing 



2 Agricultural Education. 

the best. In short, to you young men going into the world's work, it is a case 
of "fish, cut bait, or get ashore." 

Nothing reveals character so much as the way you do your work. A botched 
job shows a poor workman, while a good piece of work gives you -the impression 
of strength and masterfulness. The fact that one young m-^n may make a com- 
plete failure in his college work or in business, while another takes up the same 
work or the same business and makes a complete success of it, plainly indicates 
that there is something in men as well as institutions and methods. The fact 
that there is more in the man than in the business is my reason for urging the 
young men in this audience to bend every energy in acquiring the right kind of 
ideals for their start in life. 

The ability to do hard work, to think clearly and add to your manhood by 
honesty of purpose and integrity of your work will secure the confidence of all 
who have to do with you and you will not only win success in your college or life 
work, but, what is more, royally deserve it. Success never comes to any one by 
chance or luck. Chauncey M. Depew was once asked by a young man to give 
the secret of success, and replied: "My boy, there is no secret to it. It is just 
dig, dig, dig." Edison, being asked to give the definition of genius, replied : 
"Two per cent, is genius; ninety-eight per cent, is hard work." Upon another 
occasion, when the great inventor was asked if he did not believe that genius 
was simply inspiration, he replied. "No; genius is not inspiration, it is per- 
spiration." It is my aim in speaking these words to you more thoroughly to 
awaken the young men to the fact that youth comes but once, and the pathway 
of this life is only trodden once; therefore, it is all-important before taking up 
the chief work of life to be fitted for it as best you can, and make the very best 
out of the talent that nature has given you. 

Often a person becomes lonely in the early days of his young manhood. He 
feels that the world was made before he had anything to say about it, and the 
places are all filled, and that he will have hard work to push his way into any- 
thing. He feels that he is almost an intruder and no one wants him. If any of 
you young men feel that way, let me set your mind at rest. The whole world is 
waiting, and waiting eagerly, for young men who "know how." The story is 
told of Emerson that he had a small flower-garden in which he took much pride. 
One day a young calf got in through the gate and the old gentleman had almost 
worn himself out trying to chase the intruder out the little gate. A servant girl 
was near by churning, and seeing the predicament and taking pity on the old 
philosopher, and, having a little milk upon her fingers, easily tolled the calf out 
the gate. The old man stood and watched the performance, and finally ex- 
claimed: "Well, well; there is nothing like knowing how! " 

My young friends, that is the secret; that is the surest road to success. The 
world wants men who know how; who are willing and have been trained to do 
things. If you have not found your place yet, consider whether you know how. 
Maybe you would better go where they do know how, and work there for a time 
just to learn; then see if the way is not open. The speaker has spent bis life, 
until three years ago, upon an Illinois farm, and believes there is no man who 
requires a broader and more scientific education than the young man who ex- 
pects to make farming his vocation. The boy who takes a course in an agri- 
cultural college is vastly better fitted to win his way creditably and profitably 
than the one who learns by the hard knocks of experience alone. 

I am often asked by young men : "Does the farm pay ? Will it pay me as a 
life business ? " I reply, Yes, if you have brains and intelligently use them. Why 
does every would-be lawyer or doctor spend two or three years in preparing 



A Factor in Developing Useful Men. 3 

to practice his profession ? You say it is because he would starve to death with- 
out such training. Now, why is it, on the other hand, that no one has deemed it 
necessary to spend anytime preparing for the life of a successful farmer? If 
one can make a living at farming without preparation, it argues well for the nat- 
ural advantages of the business of farming. Now, how much more is it to the 
advantage of one who intelligently fits himself for farming, as does the lawyer, 
doctor or business man for their respective vocations ? If you would better your 
prospects and increase your income, why not grow the earliest and biggest crops 
in your neighborhood ? Why not have the best herd of improved stock ? Why 
not increase the fertility of your land and command your neighbors' respect by 
having the neatest and best-kept farm ? My young friends, you are soon to face 
the problem of self support, and I believe the majority of you would prefer to 
remain your own master and enjoy the independence of your own home, and 
tt is the aspiration of every American boy to own his own land and spend money 
in improving and beautifying his home. Now, if you had an older friend who 
had made a pronounced success of farming, would it not be worth your while 
to spend some of your spare time with him learning what he knows about work- 
ing the land, crop rotation, stock-feeding, system of farm management, and the 
like? Experience is a dear school. Can you afford to spend years in learning 
methods well known only a few miles removed from your home? 

THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE THE FARM BOYS' OPPORTUNITY. 

I want the farm boys of Kansas and other states of our Union to know more 
of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations. These colleges and sta- 
tions are in close touch with practical farmers everywhere; so their ideas, in- 
struction and advice are of general and not merely local value. Why not acquire 
these ideas and profit by them ? W T hy not spend a few months or a year or two 
at the Agricultural College of your state. Reynolds, the celebrated artist, was 
once asked how to mix paints to produce his beautiful colors. He answered: 
"Mix them with brains." That is the way to make farming pay. Put brains 
into it. Consider if the "know how" and "reason why" of modern agricul- 
ture would not be worth studying. It is with the utmost confidence and from 
intimate personal knowledge that I say that agricultural education develops all- 
around, useful men. To the young men who expect to farm or have landed 
interests, the great advantage of an agricultural course is that it gives closer at- 
tention to farming problems. The charge has been made, and not without just 
grounds, that some of the higher educational work of the past used to run so 
largely to fine-spun theory that it lost sight of the practical; but in our agricul- 
tural and land-grant schools, such as you have at Manhattan, the courses offered 
are a happy combination of theory and practice, of study and of work. A young 
man not only studies the theory of things, but deals with the things themselves, 
in whatever department they are studied, until he becomes familiar with them. 
The courses are not only calculated to give him a better training, but in the 
wood shops, the forge room, the farm mechanics' laboratory, where hundreds of 
students are taught deftness of hand and skill with machinery ; in the dairy 
manufacturing laboratory, where there is a complete equipment for creamery 
work; in the live-stock judging pavilion, where students handle hundreds of 
specimens of the different breeds of live stock — in any of these or other depart- 
ments wherein a young man may take up work, he not only learns the theory of 
things, but gets practical work as well. 

There is a plan about all this work ; boys study theories and then actually 
carry them out. In short, the education which the college of agriculture will 
give to the boy is one by no means limited to languages or books, both of which 



4 Agricultural Education. 

are only expressions of what has been discovered. It would seek to acquaint the 
Btudent with the facts and principles of the world and the ability to use them, 
taking the stand that a portion of the boy's education should be drawn out of 
the subject matter of his profession, and that it is a mistake to educate the boy 
without the slightest reference to matters he will handle when he comes to be a 
man. There is great interest from beginning to end of an agricultural-college 
course. While young men are growing deft and skilful with their hands, they 
are thinking clearer, and their desires and thirst for knowledge grow as the 
way to get it is pointed out to them. Not only are their hands and intellect 
trained, but, with the right kind of level-headed, sensible boys, their hearts grow 
more kindly and tolerant through social and intellectual intercourse as they rub 
up against each other, and they realize that they are building the best that can 
be received in this life, which is true, manly character. 

I know that these colleges are doing good, conscientious work for young men, 
and I am fortunate in being personally acquainted with many instructors in your 
own Agricultural College, and can assure you that these capable, earnest, con- 
scientious men recognize that the high ends and crowns of success which await 
and invite their best skill is the building and growing into the daily life of these 
farm boys beauties of character as well as intellectual capability, in order to de- 
velop useful, all-round, capable men. 

It is not alone the aim of agricultural-college training to pound a lot of knowl- 
edge into boys, which may or may not be of any practical use to them afterwards, 
but rather to fill them with a boundless enthusiasm and set before them high 
ideals, intellectual and moral. The agricultural colleges seek to train the students 
to be not only successful farmers but good men and intelligent citizens as well. 
In short, they seek to develop those qualities and aims which this world has no 
quotable market for and yet are of the highest demand and value in every market. 
It is the posssssion of these which promises to make the lives of the American 
farm boys companionable and wholesome while at their daily vocations, and po- 
tential in the affairs of the commonwealth, and finally worth taking with them 
to that undiscovered country from whence no traveler ever returns. I have the 
deepest sympathy for the unfortunates who pass through this world with only 
half equipment ; these persons with no heart and no appreciation for poetry and 
art. No sadder sight is ever presented than is sometimes seen upon the farm, 
when the farmer is bound up both body and soul by thoughts and intents upon 
money-getting alone. To carry the efforts for developing land and accumulating 
property to the extreme of miserliness dwarfs and shrivels the development of true 
manhood even more than years can the aging body. The agricultural colleges 
believe this entirely uncalled for and unnecessary, and most foreign to those sunny 
and broadening influences which farm life invites. 

And now a word of suggestion and encouragement to the boy who wants a 
college education. Perhaps you have been told that such an education would 
unfit you for the farm. I want to assure you that a real education which trains 
the eye to see, the hand to work and the mind to perceive the truth in all things 
will never unfit any man for the farm who is fit to be a farmer. Your success in 
getting an education which will be of practical value will depend primarily upon 
what sort of a boy you are, how hungry you are for knowledge, how willing you 
are to apply yourself, and on the natural strength of your mind. If you have 
not already gotten all you can from the schools near your home, let me urge you 
to devote the next year or two to mastering thoroughly the subjects taught in 
these schools. Get on good terms with your teachers and get their help. Send 
to the Agricultural College, at Manhattan, for a catalogue and suggestions as to 



A Factor in Developing Useful Men. 5 

books to read. They will be glad to help you. Keep your mind constantly at 
work in this direction. Remember, nothing can keep you from getting an educa- 
tion. We want you to have an education that will bring out the best that is in 
you; but remember you must get it yourself. No book, no teacher, no college 
instructor can educate you ; you must educate yourself. Neither money, nor 
position, nor teacher, nor college can give development of mind and real edu- 
cation except you have a determination to appropriate these opportunities. "It 
is up to you." 

If financial difficulties stand in the way, put your wits to work to gather 
enough money during the next year or two to give you a start in college. Work 
extra time and raise some crop. Do all the work yourself and pay rent for the 
land, if need be. Sell the crop and with the money buy pigs and sheep. Feed 
and sell these, and in this way start a fund to be used for books and to pay your 
way for a year or two at the Agricultural College. 

I believe that most farm boys sincerely desire to better their prospects and be 
good, useful men. The trouble is that they sometimes do not know just how to 
go about it. To aid in starting them on the right track and to make their path- 
way plainer and easier is the object of the work which the Illinois College of 
Agriculture has recently taken up and called 

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE EXTENSION. 

The work of this department has in view the bringing of the educational forces 
of the college in touch with the largest number of young persons possible living 
on Illinois farms, and inducing as many of them as possible to avail themselves of 
the advantages of higher education in agricultural and other lines. In the broad 
sense of the term, this work is a go-between for the department work of the 
college of agriculture and the young people of the state, in the way of encourag- 
ing the boys and girls to avail themselves of the training which the state courses 
afford. We feel that this is rendered necessary from the fact that young people 
of the farm have no very great encouragement toward higher educaton. 

We have adopted the following leading features: 

First, — Personal correspondence. 

Second. — Attending farmers' institutes and personally visiting the hemes of 
some of these young people. 

Third. — Young people's experimental clubs. 

Fourth. — Excursion parties to visit the University. 

We have a growing list of the names of several thousand boys and girls, 
which names have been secured largely through the cooperation of friends of 
the college, and furnishes a good working-list upon which to base our efforts as 
indicated above: First, by personal correspondence, because it is an event in a 
boy's or girl's life to get a personal letter from someone who desires to help 
them become better and more useful citizens. We each recall that a few words 
of encouragement and sympathy helped us in early days, and we ende?.vor to put 
this spirit into our letters. Second, we enlist the interest and cooperation of 
some of the leading men in a county, preferably the superintendent of schools, 
and encourage them to organize these young people into so-called "young peo- 
ple's experimental clubs." A number of clubs have been organized in this way, 
ranging in membership from 30 to 300. We supply these experimental-club work- 
ers with helpful literature. This season much interest was taken in the culti- 
vation of Indian corn. Many institutes have offered prizes for the best corn 
raised by young people under eighteen years of age. Cooperating with the work 
of the institutes, we sent these young people leaflets containing information as 
to the cultivation of the corn, and furnished a record blank upon which they re- 



6 Agricultural Education. 

ported to us. In addition, some simple experiments were outlined, such as the 
effect of root pruning, counting the number of barren stalks, time of polleniza- 
tion, etc. 

The results of these observations are sent in to us as a report from these 
young people, who begin to observe more closely how corn grows. A large num- 
ber of observations as to smut in oat-fields have been sent to us upon blanks 
which we supplied. Early in the summer we sent out a suggestive form for a 
weather chart and information as to how to make a simple rain-gauge. The 
circular also contained a number of suggestive methods of observation work to 
be taken up during vacation. Its aim was to make the boys and girls observe 
the every-day things; to find untold pleasure in the undiscovered beauties of 
nature, as well as to give closer attention to farming problems. When we sent 
out a circular asking for data as regards farm machinery which had been left ex- 
posed to the rain and sun, several reports came in filled out, and with this kind 
of a foot-note : "When your blank came we had a plow or hay-rake out in the field, 
but it is now sheltered." These boys had evidently been awakened to new facts. 

We are just now sending out a leaflet intended for the girls as well as the 
boys, making a special study of what pure air and proper ventilation mean to 
the home and dwelling- rooms. 

As an outgrowth of the experimental work supplied to these clubs of the 
young people, and the young people individually, they become interested in this 
work and desire to visit the college of agriculture and become better acquainted. 
We have had excursion parties from some eighteen different counties throughout 
the state, ranging in number from 60 to 640 persons. Rates were secured from 
the railroad companies, and when the party came they were personally conducted 
over the university farms and through the buildings, and we served them with a 
simple lunch one of the days while here. Through the medium of these excur- 
sions, many parents are encouraged to come here and bring their children, and 
much good is thus accomplished when they see the great opportunity presented 
to them at their agricultural college. Who can tell the thoughts that run 
through the minds of these young people when they first go through the college 
halls? I know that as an outgrowth of these excursions many young people 
have expressed a determination to complete their high-school work and prepare 
themselves that they may come and spend one or more years at the university. 
They return to their homes having a new incentive for diligent work, that they 
may in the near future have a part in the great university life. As a result 
which I believe is largely attributable to this work, the boys and girls come to 
the college of agriculture better prepared to take up the work than they formerly 
did. This was quite evident on the last registration day. In short, this work 
gives an introduction, as it were, and enables the young person to come more 
gracefully into university life and the requirements and demands which are made 
upon him. Our idea is to make it a personal matter in this work with the boys 
and girls and to get into closer touch with as many as we can and study their 
needs and inclinations: in the main, we are trying to use rifle instead of shot-gun 
methods, and get directly after the boys and girls, and follow them up both with 
literature and personal letters. 

We keep a card-index system, entering the name of each young person; his 
post-office and county; whatever he is especially interested in; number of 
brothers and sisters he has; their age; occupation of parents; size of farm they 
live upon; record of literature sent; and letters sent and received. 

We attend a number of institutes in the state, and, if going to a meeting, for 
instance, in Adams county, we will, a couple of weeks before the meeting, send 



A Factor in Developing Useful Men. 1 

letters to all the young people in that county whose names we have on our list, 
telling them that a representative of the college will be present at the meeting. 
Then draw their attention in a personal manner to that special feature of the 
program in which we know from the cards they are especially interested. Then, 
upon going to the meeting with these cards in our pocket, we can study out and 
know the names and something in detail of the particular young people we are 
going to meet. Such is, in brief, an outline of the nature of the work we are do- 
ing in the way of agricultural college extension. 

Briefly, the results are as follows: 

First. — An interest in agriculture is awakened early in life, as most of these 
people are but twelve to fourteen years of age. 

Second. — An increased number of students in the college of agriculture, 
seventy-five more having registered this year than did a year ago. 

Third. — Better preparation of these students. 

Fourth. — A more general appreciation among young people on the farm of 
the advantages of higher education in all lines, resulting in an increased attend- 
ance in all courses. 

Fifth. — A wider and more intelligent conception of what the college of agri- 
culture is doing and of its needs. 

Much of this work is of such a nature that its results cannot be tabulated or 
expressed in words and figures. It has already given fruit along the lines above 
mentioned, and the belief is cherished that what has been accomplished is but a 
fraction of what is bound to follow the cumulative effect of this line of work. 
We believe there is certainly a field for this kind of work, and the good results 
of this direct personal effort are bound to be felt in quickening the aspirations 
of boys and girls. We are endeavoring to carry the thought of culture and higher 
education into the farm homes and to give these young people a glimpse of all 
the great things that agricultural prosperity means, and cause them to seek out 
and inquire more earnestly for those things which will contribute most effectu- 
ally and most directly to agricultural prosperity. We endeavor to bring no spirit 
of bigotry or partizanship into this work. We believe that every young person 
should follow the lead of his inclinations and adaptability. Every farm boy is 
no more fitted to become a farmer than every boy who is born near a corner drug- 
store is fitted to become a druggist; but we believe in encouraging young men 
who expect to farm to be good farmers and fit themselves for their business, 
just as you encourage their brothers who take up professional life. Thus shall 
be developed a class of men true and tolerant and useful in the home and po- 
tential in public affaire. 

The prime requisite for all this work is to be thoroughly in earnest and heart- 
ily in sympathy with the work. If a young person feels that some one sympa- 
thizes with him and really does care whether or not he makes a man of himself, 
he is bound to be more or less influenced and guided by such an one, and some- 
times a letter or a half-hour's conversation contains the destiny of a life. I will 
give one concrete instance of this : Last winter I went into a farm home near 
Bloomington, 111., where were four boys, the oldest of whom was twenty years 
old. He was a senior in the high school and expected to take a course in elec- 
trical engineering. His brother who was younger had been out of school for two 
years. He expected to follow farming, and said he did not believe higher educa- 
tion would be of any practical value to him. The family knew little or nothing 
concerning the work of the college of agriculture, althpugh well informed upon 
general topics. We lighted a lantern and went out to the corn-crib and got some 
corn, which we scored for the boys; told them how we judged stock ; and of the 



8 Agricultural Education. 

work in farm machinery, wood shops, the forge room. They were interested, and 
we sat up until midnight pointing out the difference between an educated and 
an uneducated man. The next morning the father thanked me for my visit and 
promised to bring the two older boys over to visit the college. They came 
during the summer vacation. I spent the day showing them over the grounds 
and through the buildings. As a result, the older boy came this fall to enter the 
engineering school and his brother is now with us in the college of agriculture, 
and expects to remain not less than two years. And then there are two younger 
boys in that family who will be influenced by that evening's visit. Did it pay ? 

That there is room for and need of the state adopting this policy in her edu- 
cation of the young people of the farms to develop her agricultural productivities, 
is best answered by referring to the hundreds of letters which these young people 
write and the buoyant enthusiasm with which they enter into the spirit of this 
work. 

BUILDING FIBER INTO AMERICAN LIFE. 

Ladies and gentlemen, agricultural education is building the best fiber into 
the structure of American life, and is destined to bear still nobler fruit. Re- 
member your Agricultural College, at Manhattan, will not educate these boys 
away from their Kansas farm homes, but what it must do and will do is to edu- 
cate them in their surroundings. The training they receive there will not only 
increase their earning capacity, but will so fit them for the work of life that they 
will make the farm homes of this resourceful state the most attractive places on 
earth. Twenty years hence the farm boys now before me will be filling your 
offices and will mainly control the business of the state and be potential factors in 
our national life. I plead with you to foster and give financial aid to your Agri- 
cultural College, for the education it offers to your boys will give them such 
soundness of judgment on all questions that the name "farmer" will no longer 
mean a mere tiller of the soil, but will be a badge of distinction and a mark of 
honor. The great need of our agricultural commonwealth is more first-class young 
farmers to take second- and third-rate farms and make them first class. Where 
is there more available material for our future farmers than is now presented by 
Kansas boys ? To speak some little word which will aid in winning, these Kansas 
boys to a life of devoted interest to your farming future is my mission at this 
meeting. My young friends, do not be misled by the fact that perchance many 
of our fathers succeeded well in their life-work with but little school or college 
training. Remember, they lived in different times, and that these opportuni- 
ties were not available to them. There is a smaller sphere for the unedu- 
cated man of every decade, and a diminishing possibility of success for the man 
who does not read and think. The reading man is in the saddle. The thinking 
man is guiding our national destinies. 

The latch-string of your college hangs out, and there is not a young man in 
the state who cannot take an agricultural course, provided he only makes up his 
mind to that end. Gentlemen, the Kansas farmer who uses fifty dollars in send- 
ing his son to the Agricultural College, at Manhattan, is making a far better in- 
vestment than in putting $500 into barns or alfalfa-fields. 

AGRICULTURE IN THE RURAL SCHOOLS. 

I take it that you have all agreed with me in the general statement that the boy 
who farms should be educated. But the speaker takes the ground that the rural 
schools, which are so often the farmers' preparatory and finishing schools, should 
consider more fully the environment and probable future life of the pupils, and 
that, while the boys are in leading-strings, so to speak, there should be some 
recognition of the life they expect to follow. 



A Factor in Developing Useful Men. 9 

Our district schools recruit the academy, the college, arid the university, and 
they in turn have been recruiting every profession under the sun except farming. 
A majority of the workers in this state are engaged in agriculture. The environ- 
ments of your children are rural. Gentlemen, the dominant question of this 
meeting is not expansion in acres or in national possessions ; rather, it is the ex- 
pansion of the brain, the skill and the judgment of the farm boys in Kansas. 
Am I asking too much when I plead for the cooperation of your rural teachers, 
that their instruction be shaped somewhat in harmony with the callirig which a 
majority of their pupils must eventually engage in, and thus make their influ- 
ence at least correlative with the work of the Agricultural College of your state ? 
All about our school buildings, in the fields and forests, are many objects of in- 
tense interest to every human being, but I fear that the average school-teacher 
of to-day is as indifferent to these object-lessons as though his school buildiDg 
was in the heart of a great city. Why cannot these country school children be in- 
structed along lines which will enable them to develop the powers of observation 
of the natural objects about them? A growing corn plant or the root develop- 
ment of the clover plant, when properly explained, are certainly objects of the 
keenest interest to children, whether they live in the city or country. 

I do not.believe that our rural schools can teach practical farming, but they 
can teach many things about crops, soils, animals, feeding stuffs, trees, etc., 
which will help to make more practical farmers, and help to make all who live in 
the country have a keener appreciation of rural life and its wonderful oppor- 
tunities. 

There are a'few scientific terms that should be as familiar to the farmer boy 
as the multiplication table — such as "protein," "carbohydrates"; or the essen- 
tial elements of soil fertility, as "nitrogen," "phosphorus," "potash," etc. Let 
me ask you if they are any harder to understand or remember or use than such 
"shop" words and phrases as "minuend," "subtrahend," "greatest common 
divisor," "aliquot parts," "conjunctive adverbs," etc. — words which are rarely, 
if ever, spoken outside of the schoolroom, and yet which are drilled into the 
country boys year after year, as though they were vital to their very existence. 

I believe that it is as practicable to teach elementary agriculture or nature 
study in our country schools as it is to teach history or physiology. 

To the older ones in this audience I would say, were we privileged to return 
to our childhood days, could we not, with the knowledge which the years have 
brought, give a more certain trend to the acts of that period ? Yet to you, as 
friends, teachers, or parents, there comes the opportunity to place yourselves, in 
a measure, beside this later-day child, the farm boy, and, as a child with him, 
lead him to that higher plane of which true manhood is the summit. 

THE MEANING OF THIS — THE HOME. 

And now, if all that I have said means anything, it is that your farm boys 
should not live for the sole purpose of raising corn to feed hogs to buy land to 
raise more corn to feed more hogs, and so on in this ceaseless circle until the 
Almighty shall put a stop to such hoggish proceedings. No, there is something 
else to be thought of. This life should not all be spent in mere money-getting— 
health is better than wealth. Love, friendship and family affections are worth 
more than gold. Of that young man who makes farming honorable as well as 
profitable, who demonstrates that farm life promotes mental and moral culture 
and is favorable to the exercise of all those qualities that make life pure and 
noble, who surrounds his home with objects of attraction and beauty, and who 
shows to the world his faith in and love of his calling — of such a character, I 



10 Agricultural Education. 

say, nature may be proud to stand up before the whole world and say, "This is a 
man." 

We Americans love our homes and we want to make them into the best homes 
in the world. Not many years ago a ship left one of our Atlantic ports with no 
cargo, no passengers, and sailed across the sea until it reached a wharf where it 
waited for its only cargo. The cargo was a long pine box brought onto the ship; 
then silently the prow was turned towards home, and across the sea came the 
ship day by day, until it reached our own shore, and then all over this land there 
were guns booming and flags at half-mast and bells tolling, and all because the 
dead body of one man, a simple American citizen, had been brought back to this 
land for burial. And that dead body was so honored because that man — John 
Howard Payne— had written the words that we sing and call, "Home, Sweet 
Home." We are all Americans, and Americans know that, in order to make this 
nation strong and earnest and wise and true, homes must be built up. We must 
teach and educate these farm boye that to be strong, clean, earnest, true men is 
to find the best heritage that can be given to an American. Having the heart to 
will, the brain to plan, and the hand to do, means the best of attainment. 

In conclusion, there is a little simile I will leave with you : Way up in the 
Swiss mountains there is a small lake that has two outlets; one drop of water 
falling from the clouds finds an outlet to the north, follows the wide and wind- 
ing river Rhine, past the historic cities of Germany, enters the North sea, flows 
along the frigid shores of Denmark into the Arctic ocean, and is finally locked 
up and imprisoned in some huge iceberg. Another drop from the same cloud, 
joining innumerable companions, finds an outlet to the south, and forms the 
river Rhone, flows through the fertile valleys of France, and mingles with the 
blue waters of the Mediterranean sea, past the historic shores of Italy, and 
among the storied isles of Greece, bearing the burdens of commerce, and the 
while smiling in the gladsome sunshine. 

How widely different the fate of these two raindrops from the same cloud ; yet 
not less dissimilar are the lives of two boys. One is careless, idle, indolent, drift- 
ing from bad to worse; making of life a complete failure. The other is indus- 
trious, ambitious, painstaking; doing his tasks thoroughly; climbing higher 
and higher the ladder of fame, until success finally crowns his efforts. 

Ladies and gentlemen, there are certain points in intellectual development 
and morals, certain ideals and ambitions, most of which are acquired in the 
boy's school life, that determine the groove down which his life shall run through 
time to an endless eternity. 

And now I am done. I have taxed your patience, but it has been a pleasure 
to talk to you, for you have helped me by being good listeners. I feel as though 
each one of you was a personal friend to me. You have been so kind and cor- 
dial to a stranger who came among you. 

I believe that most of you young men will succeed: 

"We all believe in Kansas; she's the state, 
With all the elements to make her great — _ 
Young men, high hopes, proud dreams ; 't is yours to see 
Your state succeed to what a state should be." 

Remember though, that the greatest success lies not in the mere making of 
money or making a great stir in the world, but that it consists primarily in the 
building up around this personality which encloses the body a true manly char- 
acter. In that alone come peace and happiness. Remember that your acts are 
immortal through their effects on the world and the lives of others. Try to live 
so that others will be lifted up by you. 



COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL 
EXPERIMENT STATION, 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. 



E. DAVENPORT, Dean and Director. 



HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS. 



T. J. BURRILL Botany. 

D. McINTOSH Veterinary Science. 

C. G. HOPKINS... Agronomy and Chemistry. 

E. DAVENPORT Thremmatology. 



J. C. BLUR Horticulture. 

H. W. MUM FORD Animal Husbandry. 

W. J. FR ASER Dairy Husbandry. 

ISABEL BEVIER Household Science. 



FRED H. RANKIN College Extension. 



HORTICULTURE. 

J. C. BLAIR Professor of Horticulture. 

T. J. BURRILL Forestry. 

J. W. LLOYD Olericulture. 

C. S. CRANDALL Pomology. 

A. C. BEAL Floriculture. 

i 

AGRONOMY AND CHEMISTRY. 

C. G. HOPKINS Professor of Agronomy. 

L. H. SMITH Plant-breeding. 

F. R. CRANE Farm Mechanics. 

J. G. MOSIER Soil Physics. 

J. H. PETTIT Soil Fertility. 

E. M. EAST Chemistry. 

W. F. PATE Chemistry. 

I. O. SCHAUB Chemistry. 

CLIFFORD WILLIS Soil Physics. 

C. A. SCHROEDER Chemistry. 

A. N. HUME Farm Crops. 

DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 

W. J. FRASER Professor of Dairy Husbandry. 

J. W. HART Dairy Manufactures. 

C. C. HAYDEN Dairy Husbandry. 

H. A. HOPPER Dairy Husbandry. 

Field-wobk — Northern Illinois. 

A. J. GLOVER Dairy Husbandry. 

C. E. LEE Manufactures. 

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY. 

HERBERT W. MUMFORD Professor of Animal Husbandry. 

L. D. HALL Instructor in Beef Cattle. 

R. C. OBRECHT Instructor and Investigator in Horses. 

Wm. DIETEICH Instructor and Investigator in Swine. 

E. S. GOOD Assistant in Animal Husbandry. 

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE. 

ISABEL BEVIER Professor of Household Science. 

GERTRUDE CLARK SOBER Instructor in Household Science. 

(11) 



CIRCULAR OF INFORMATION 

MARCH, 1904. 



COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA. 



WHO ARE ADMITTED. 

Anybody who reads and speaks English and is sixteen years of age may be 
admitted to the College of Agriculture. 

CONDITIONS OF ADMISSION. 

For graduates of accredited high schools and for students eighteen years of 
age there are no conditions, unless the person is deficient in English, when, if 
under twenty-one, he will be assigned to the Academy for that subject. If be- 
tween sixteen and eighteen years of age and not a high-school graduate, he will 
take one-half his work in the Academy and the other half may be taken in agri- 
culture. 

WHAT ADMISSION MEANS. 

When a person is admitted under any of these plans, it means that all studies 
of the University as well as of the College of Agriculture are open to him in the 
same way as to any other University student.' 

It means, too, that whether his stay be long or short he will obtain university 
credit for ivhatever he does, whether it be much or little, and this credit can 
be applied to graduation at any time the student may desire. 

WHAT CAN BE STUDIED. 

Everything taught in the University is open to a student admitted to this 
College. The system is elective, and the student chooses his own work, under 
guidance and advice. The College of Agriculture alone offers over 100 courses, 
some elementary, others exceedingly difficult. Naturally the student would take 
the more elementary courses first. 

WHAT CAN BE STUDIED AT ONCE. 

After the student has been on the grounds he will be able to make his selec- 
tion intelligently, but for his first guidance the list on the following page is 
printed. It contains nothing that the student may not take the first year, and 
is thus a good list to choose from on entering. If he expects to stay a year or 
more, he would do well to choose chemistry as one of his studies. Under the 
United States law, all students take military drill. 

HOW MUCH CAN THE STUDENT TAKE. 

After each study in the list is a number. A student may ordinarily take 
studies adding up to eighteen in each semester, or thirty-six in one year. Ex- 
ceptional students may take a little more. 

WHO OUGHT TO GO. 

Everybody who expects to live on the farm should go to this College, if only 
for a brief period. 

WHEN SHOULD HE COME. 

At any time when it is possible, but the best time is at the opening of the year. 
A good time is at the opening of any half semester, when new studies are started. 

(12) 



13 

HOW LONG SHOULD HE STAY. 

As long as circumstances permit. He should take a college course and gradu- 
ate, if possible, but he should come, if only for a half semester or even a month. 

SCHOLARSHIPS. 

Three kinds of scholarships are open to students in this college : 

1. State scholarships, one for each county, to be had on competitive exami- 
nation at the county court-house of each county the first Saturday in June. 

2. Farmers' institute scholarships, one for each county (ten for Cook and 
Lake), to be had without examination, upon recommendation of the State 
Farmers' Institute. 

3. Household science scholarships, one for each county (ten for Cook and 
Lake), to be had without examination, upon recommendation of the county as- 
sociations of domestic science. 

EXPENSES. 

Scholarship students pay no fees of any kind to the University except for ma- 
terials consumed in the laboratories and for instruction in the Academy, if such 
is necessary (two dollars per subject per semester). 

Special students not holding scholarships pay twelve dollars per semester for 
incidentals and seven and one-half dollars tuition. 

IT IS A GOOD PLACE TO GO. 

The elective system is in operation, and the student gets what he wants and 
is not required to take what he does not need. Whether his stay is long or short, 
whatever he does is thoroughly done, and he gets credit for what he accomplishes. 

Many interesting experiments are in operation and plainly to be seen by the 
student. There is a staff of twenty-five teachers. The laboratory system is 
used, whereby the student does the work himself under the personal direction of 
the specialist. The College and Station own extensive laboratories, well equipped, 
from 200 to 300 head of cattle, with horses, sheep and swine in proportion, ex- 
tensive plantings in horticulture, and a complete agricultural and general library. 

Many important meetings are held at the College every year, and a two weeks' 
convention is held each winter, in January, attended by leading farmers from all 
over the state, and addressed by men prominent in agriculture. This is known 
as the Corn Growers' and Stockmen's Convention and the Housekeepers' Confer- 
ence. The first two hours of the morning and all of the evening are given to the 
convention. During the remainder of the day classes are conducted in stock 
judging, corn- judging, farm mechanics, butter-making, and household science. 

NO DISTINCTIONS AMONG STUDENTS. 

Some institutions discriminate against agricultural students. It is not so 
here. The University of Illinois is a democratic institution, and all classes of 
students are welcome — engineering and agricultural students, scientists, liter- 
aries, and law, all mix without distinction. Everybody is happy and everybody is 
busy at the University of Illinois. 

OPPORTUNITIES EXCEPTIONAL. 

It is generally conceded that this College offers courses in soils, crops, animal 
husbandry and horticulture second to no other institution. It is not so gen- 
erally known that four men devote their entire time to dairy husbandry, and 
that butter-making is in progress throughout the year, offering unusual oppor- 
tunities to students of dairying at any time they may find it convenient to come. 

To learn all that the University is doing in agriculture, write for catalog. 

Address W. L. Pillsbury, Registrar, E. Davenport, Dean, or Fred H. 
Rankin, Superintendent College Extension, Urbana, Illinois. 



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15 



A WORD TO THE FAEM BOY. 



You are growing restless on the farm. The writer knows just how you feel, 
for he has traveled after the plow many a weary day thinking the thoughts 
that you are thinking now. You know that there is a great outside world which 
you desire to enter and which can only be entered satisfactorily through the por- 
tals of an education. You believe that an education would be worth more to you 
than your father's farm, and would give that farm, if you had it, for that educa- 
tion. We sympathize with you, for that was our dream for long years by day 
and by night. We approve of the feeling that inspires it. We would like to 6ee 
every bright boy have an education, but we would not like, unless you are par- 
ticularly qualified for it, to see you secure an education which would land you in 
one of what are called professions. 

The country is full of lawyers, the majority of them briefless and obliged to 
get a living in real estate, insurance, or some other business quite apart from the 
law. They have been driven out practically from the profession for which they 
spent thousands of dollars and years of time to acquire fitness. The same may 
be said of doctors and preachers. If you are qualified for it by nature and grace, 
there is no profession more honorable, nor, in fact, so honorable, as that of a 
minister of the Gospel, but, unfortunately, many a man who has had in him the 
making of a good farmer has been spoiled by becoming a poor preacher. 

We know of but one branch of education that has a certain, definite job wait- 
ing for the graduate when he gets his diploma, and that is an agricultural edu- 
cation. Every other profession is overcrowded. In this the supply is not equal 
to the demand, and will not be in the next twenty years. The farm boy who, 
having learned the practical part of farming, having familiarized himself with 
the machinery and become qualified to handle farm animals as they are handled 
on his father's farm, will take a thorough course at the Agricultural College will 
be just the kind of a man, provided, always, he has the brains and the grit, that 
the world is looking for to-day. You may devote yourself to horticulture, to 
stock-breeding, to dairying, to butter-making, to cheese-making, or to cattle- 
feeding, and, if you have the stuff in you, you will find a job, and a good-paying 
one at that, waiting for you at the end of the course. The colleges and experi- 
ment stations will require the services of a great many educated young farmers. 
It will not be many years before every line of railroad in the West will have an 
industrial department, which no one can run who does not combine the theoret- 
ical with the practical. A railroad official told us the other day that they needed 
a man of this kind, and we pointed out the kind of man required, he said : 
"Why, that man would cost $5000 a year." The Department of Agriculture 
needs more than anything else this kind of men, and boys without capital, who 
will qualify themselves for this kind of work, will not need to wait ten or twelve 
years before they see a living clearly ahead of ihem. 

As the years go on, it will become more apparent that the man who will farm 
successfully must have the "know how," which he can gain only by long expe- 
rience and reading at home, or by an education plus experience and reading. 
Four years at college, or even two years, will be worth to you twenty years of 
farm life without it. Therefore, we say to the young man, not "Go West," but 
"Go to college if you possibly can. Go to an agricultural college." 

Don't start out to be a pure scientist; you want a broader education than 
that. It will pay you if you go back to run your father's farm. It will pay you 
if you buy a farm of your own. If you are not able to do this, somebody who 
has a farm will need you. The oil meal folks were not long since looking for a 
young man to act as their agent who knew how to feed cattle and how to com- 
pound rations of which oil-meal is a part. Every line of business that has to do 
with farmers greatly prefers a man who not only knows how farming is done, 
but why it is done, and hence is in touch with the farmer. 

Don't go West, young man ; don't go to the city; go to the Agricultural Col- 
lege, and to the agricultural end of that college. This would be our advice to 
you if we never wrote another line. It would have been worth fifteen years of 
life to the editor of this paper if he had had the opportunity at your age to fol- 
low the line which he maps out to you.— Dr. Henry Wallace. 



til- .'MhKiV/^K) 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



002 782 281 2 % 




